16 October 2013 - Vancouver, Canada - fSONA Networks, manufacturer of the fastest optical wireless products on the market today, today announced that their SONAbeam has been used by France's largest bank, Crédit Agricole, to provide a 10 Gigabit wireless link at the their Saint Quentin en Yvelines campus in Paris. Four SONAbeam 2500-Z links were deployed to replace a fiber ring connection that would be severed due to construction of a new building. More than 1600 employees depended on this connection and use it extensively on a daily basis.

SILCA, Crédit Agricole's affiliate specialized in IT, manages the campus network and was tasked with ensuring employees have a reliable network connection during construction. There were two key advantages that convinced SILCA to select fSONA's laser-based FSO solution. The first benefit was how quickly the link could be operational. From start to finish, research to final commissioning, the complete process took about a month. The second benefit was that the system could be redeployed once construction was complete. A temporary fiber solution would have to be replaced and there would be no way to recoup the cost. With FSO, the links are portable and can be moved to a new location if the situation requires or used to provide additional bandwidth as needs grow.

"Crédit Agricole and SILCA have adopted an original and innovative solution to their networking issue. The construction of a new building is always a challenge, but in this particular case Saint Quentin en Yvelines campus MAN and LAN networks could be out of service due to the fiber being directly in the path of construction," observed Andrew Grieve, President & CEO of fSONA Networks. "By thinking outside the box, SILCA was able to find a solution that will provide uninterrupted service to campus employees and will continue to provide crucial network continuity in the future. fSONA and Skynet are very pleased to have been a part of this project."

About fSONA
fSONA Networks is an innovative provider of next generation optical wireless (also known as Free Space Optics, or FSO) solutions that utilise a flexible point-to-point architecture and protocol transparent design. Founded in 1997 with a goal to develop premier, low-cost, eye-safe, optical transmission products for the broadband access market, fSONA has created the toughest, most powerful free space optics systems ever brought to market - the SONAbeam® family.

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